


Prince to Pauper

by Martin Iceworth (Iceworth)



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Low Chaos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 18:17:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iceworth/pseuds/Martin%20Iceworth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They thought he'd be a force to reckon with; a terrifying assassin who gloried in the blood he shed. But before Corvo was an assassin, he knew only luxury. Now, he knows only fear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prince to Pauper

His gear is in the pit below him where the Whalers had tossed it. He hears the groans and sobs of the weepers surrounding it. His clothing clings to him with sweat, sewage and grime. He grips the chain he hangs from tightly.

He has never been a large man, nor a particularly strong one. He was chosen for his skill, not for how intimidating he was; Jessamine had been so creeped out by his ability to appear behind her without her even noticing. "If you scare me," she'd said, "You'll scare everyone else."

He is wiry, easily mistaken for a teenaged boy even at the beginning of his forties, and his thin legs wrap around the chain easily and hold him there as he breathes, his heart thrashing with fear inside his chest. His hands are frozen on the chain links.

He can't move.

He's too scared.

He wasn't cut out for this. 

He was a bodyguard, damn it, not a bloody assassin! The only reason he knows how assassins work is because he spent his entire career making sure they  _didn't_. And in the last several days, with desperation sending him crawling through sewage tunnels and flashing over rooftops, he's already learned far more about being a bodyguard than he had in twenty years of training.

Sometimes, on the job, he wanted to curl up and plant his hands over his ears like a child and pretend none of it was happening; that the guards that patrolled below wouldn't ever look up, that the people he killed would get back up when he wasn't looking and resume the lives he'd stolen from them as if he'd never been.  _You can break down when it's over_ , he told himself. He pushed himself through each job, ignoring his aching body and the desperation that had been clawing at his insides for six and a half months, and he kept the hell on going. And, somehow, each time he made it back to the Hounds Pits, he didn't feel like collapsing anymore.

But now, with the Pit gone, with no safe place to sleep anymore and little Emily far out of reach, the urge is stronger than ever. He prays to the Empress like she's some kind of goddess, and he keeps on going. There is nothing ahead but the unknown and the terror that comes with it, but there's a little girl relying on him.

He can't stop now.

He clutches the tinkling chains. His gear is down here, and his mask, he knows it.

So are the weepers. He can hear them. There must be half a dozen or more. He knows they're not going to survive when he gets down there; he'll have no choice, and he hates it. His hands are too stiff to shake, but he can feel the terror scratch in his veins. His breath comes in and out like an overheated dog. 

He clutches the chain tighter. He screws his eyes shut.

He breathes.

_You can break down when it's over._

And then he descends.


End file.
